


damned

by lonely_is_so_lonely_alone



Category: Law & Order
Genre: F/M, post aftershock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 05:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26347543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonely_is_so_lonely_alone/pseuds/lonely_is_so_lonely_alone
Summary: Since when was conviction a character flaw?- Claire Kincaid 6x23 (Aftershock)It was saving people that killed her. She would've tried to save the whole damn world if she could've.
Relationships: Claire Kincaid/Jack McCoy
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	damned

**Author's Note:**

> Lockdown lead me to Law and Order repeats. The repeats lead me here. 
> 
> All mistakes are mine.

It was trying to save people that got her killed. That’s what they should’ve said after, when they climbed upon that lectern, with their palms open wide like the pages of a bible. 

You just wanna save the world, that’s what Mama said a week back, with liquor on her tongue and Mac holding her back. You just wanna save everyone, every last damn one, and you know what - Claire, oh Claire, they’re dead, aren’t they? The people you help, most of the time they're already dead.  _ You’re too late _ . That’s what Mama said and she was angry, she had bourbon in her blood and time on her hands and bitterness that came through like a bloodstain. 

Lennie was the last. The sole survivor. Lennie Briscoe, drunk and stumbling and  _ saved _ , even if it cost more than all the ones before. 

_ I doubt your daughter hates you _ . The last thing Claire Kincaid ever said. She’d never met that kid, she’d never even seen that kid. But she said it and she meant it and she looked out the corner of her eye and that was the moment. That was it. 

Maybe she said it cause she was that kid once, not that exact one - but a kid who could turn their back on where they came from, where they’d belonged once. And it stung, like a slap; mama said the law was for the boys, the men, for Mac, and one lawyer was always gonna be enough for that family. 

So maybe she said it because she wanted to be kind to an old man. Maybe she wanted to save him, too. 

…

It was Adam who mentioned it first. Adam who pulled her over to his office and sat her down and called her  _ young lady  _ in a way that made her roll her eyes. 

It was Adam who handed her the glass and poured the alcohol. And they were alone and it was dark and he said, ‘You know Claire, some people, they don’t want to be saved,’ and he was talking about Ben Stone. 

Ben plead out, the equivalent. Signed his resignation and didn’t even say goodbye. He didn’t give Claire a chance, he ran away. And it was the guilt talking, the guilt that spoke for Ben Stone and eventually, years and years and years later, it talked for Claire Kincaid too. 

_ You just can’t quit the human race _ . That’s what Mac said to her, the last time. The profession would be easy to quit, that she could do. She could waltz out of that office like Ben Stone before her. There was a precedent, you know. But the world, that’s tougher, cause the world’s got Jack McCoy in it. 

And if Ben Stone didn’t want to be saved, Jack McCoy was a man who didn’t  _ need  _ saving in the first place. 

It was Adam who warned her about that, too. Adam who said, peering over the top of his glasses, looking to the world like a stern father, a father she had never really had, ‘McCoy’s a pulled up by his bootstraps kind of man, Claire. They can save themselves.’ and she didn’t know what that meant, cause Ben Stone’s shadow was still in the doorway and Joel Thayer’s ghost was at her shoulder. 

She learned later, about Jack. About the women who had thought to save him - about Sally and Ellen and Diana, oh especially Diana, because that woman tried to save Jack McCoy and he didn’t want it. 

As she slipped into his bed, even though she said she wouldn’t, Claire Kincaid thought - maybe he’ll save me, this time. And she was wrong, because  _ to hell with her, to hell with all of them _ . And Jack McCoy blew out that bar, cause he didn’t need a girl to come save him. He didn’t need no saving. 

It was Claire who did.

…

She watched him sleep. Jack. He had his hands curled under his pillow like a child. She could never believe in those moments that anybody could call him ‘hang ‘em high’ because Jack McCoy slept like a child when he was sleeping in her bed. 

She would watch him and brush his hair away from his eyes and she knew then, with a certainty that settled in her bones, that it would never last. Two years is good running. Five, maybe they’d make it to five - that’s what she told herself. Five years, a round, good ol’ five. 

Maybe he’d ask her to marry him, maybe he’d just walk the tightrope one to many times and fall. Maybe he’d get sick of her. She thought about that one a lot. The other women had been left behind and Claire never had the courage to ask which one of them did the leaving. 

It was when she woke early. When the sunrise was the color of blood, splashed along the horizon over the river. She would watch him from a chair in the corner, and sometimes she would have a book or case files or a newspaper open in her lap. 

One time he woke up. She pretended she was reading. It was dark in the apartment. 

‘Come back to bed, Claire,’ he said and she obeyed him. He held her tight, with his hands splayed across her rib cage and he fell back asleep like that, with his head in the crook of her shoulder. But Claire didn’t sleep, she lay there with her eyes open and she felt him breathe. And if one moment could last forever, Claire Kincaid would have chosen that one. 

Two and half hours later, they rose from the bed and put on their best suits and twenty minutes after that, they drove to Attica to watch Mickey Scott die. 

…

Anita Van Buren tried. She tried to tell Claire that the guilt wasn’t worth it.  _ You can’t take all the blame.  _ But Claire, she couldn’t leave Jack McCoy waiting at that bar. She had to go and save him, even though he didn’t need saving, even though he was fine alone, even though every other woman in his life had left him or he’d left them. Even if Claire didn’t know she was doing it. 

The guilt was there, Ben Stone’s guilt from long ago. Jack had said, in the car on the way back, he’d said he’d call her later. The guilt ate her up, it spat her out, it left a bad taste on her tongue. But Jack called her, he called from that bar and she went out into the dark. 

Maybe it was about saving him from that guilt. Cause she heard on the phone the way he spoke, sharp and sudden, torn at the edges. She knew he was drunk. Self loathing and anger and Mickey Scott’s face, that’s what they’d turned to. Jack had numbed it with alcohol, and Claire - she had tried to talk her way out of it. She thought they could save themselves from it together. 

But Lennie Briscoe was in that bar. Not Jack. Not Jack McCoy because he was gone. Lennie needed saving, he did. So Claire put her arms around him and said, ‘I’ll drive you home,’ and Lennie didn’t even know where that was anymore. 

But she saved him, in the end. She saved Lennie cause he never touched a drop of drink again. And maybe she saved Jack McCoy but maybe she damned him too. No more girls, no more late nights and raised eyebrows. No more leaving, or being left, no more. No more at all. 

The thing Claire never realised, in the midst of all this saving - saving the victims, saving her mother and her lover and men on the street like Lennie Briscoe, she never realised she didn’t need to save them. Because for every Mickey Scott you send away, there’s another at the door, and for every Lennie Briscoe who never drinks again, there’s a guy on a corner with a bottle in a paper bag and a single dollar bill in his pocket. And no matter who she saved, no matter at all,  _ it’s not enough and it’s too much.  _

But Claire Kincaid, she died saving people. She should’ve saved herself. She was worth that, at least. 

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know. I'm like twenty five years to late to the party. But I'm a sucker for angst. Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
